


Erwin Scented Soap

by 20jld06



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Angst, Character Death, Drunken Confessions, Drunkenness, F/M, Fluff, Grief/Mourning, M/M, One Shot, Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan Season/Series 03 Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-19
Updated: 2021-03-19
Packaged: 2021-03-28 08:46:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,140
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30136974
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/20jld06/pseuds/20jld06
Summary: He took a gulp of his drink.“And his eyes.” He let out a breathless chuckle, somewhere between comedic relief and exasperation, “they weren’t blue anymore Hange. They weren’t like the ocean that we saw.”SEASON 3 SPOILERS!!
Relationships: Levi Ackerman & Furlan Church & Isabel Magnolia, Levi Ackerman/Erwin Smith, Levi Ackerman/Hange Zoë, Moblit Berner/Hange Zoë
Kudos: 22





	Erwin Scented Soap

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this instead of doing school work all morning, I didn’t even get out of bed. I had the sudden urge to write angst 🧍🏼♀️

The calmed buzz settling inside his stomach was finally offering some sense of warmth. It was the first he’d felt in a long time, after being wrapped in an endless swarm of harsh winters invading his mind. His chest forever tight. Eyes forever open.

He hadn’t tried to get drunk before, he didn’t see the point. There were the days he could recall Furlan stumbling home after a night out with a new lady friend, smelling strong of beer, piss and sex. Each time Levi would scrunch his nose in disgust; yet would help bathe and dress him nevertheless.

Until now, Levi didn’t even consider the possibility of him getting drunk. Of course alcohol had burned his throat countless times before, drink after drink, emptying each glass of liquor faster than everyone else. But it never affected him the way it did others. 

Squashed like a sandwich in between Hange and Erwin, he’d drag them back to their own rooms as they stumbled over their own feet. While Erwin somehow had the ability to keep his composure, Hange did not. They would wake up the world with their bubbling laughter and awful, awful singing. 

Erwin would laugh under his breath as Levi scowled. 

But he wished for that same feeling in which his friends could feel. He pined for it. The ability to feel anything but the pain that took ownership of his very being. The ability to let go, and drink until he couldn’t walk, couldn’t talk... couldn’t feel.

He’d come to accept that it wasn’t going to happen. He was burdened with the Ackerman name. 

Except, he could feel it now. Why now of all times? 

After taking camp in an abandoned farm in order to get their much needed and deserved rest, Levi had heard the familiar neigh of animals emerging from the stables. The clicking of hooves against hard floors as they poorly attempted their escape. 

Levi had understood them. As soon as he caught sight of their long, emotionless faces, and droopy, sorrowful eyes, he’d understood. They were cold. They were hungry. They were trapped. 

And judging by the defined sight of ribs poking from their malnourished cages... they were good as dead. 

Understanding the feeling, Levi had decided to run his spindly fingers down the lengths of their elongated faces, small noises of satisfaction huffing from their nostrils. Levi caressed their tatted manes, in hopes of offering comfort before an untimely death.

He wanted someone to pat his head, and caress his face. 

It was never a thought he’d even considered before, whether it just never occurred to him, or he wouldn’t allow himself to think it, he didn’t know. But maybe the drunken state he’d found himself in was enough to open the hidden doors of his reserved mind. 

He’d found the crates of alcohol behind the heavy stacks of hey, hidden from the rest of the world. The first thought he had was to pick them up and bring each bottle back to where they’d made camp. It would have been convenient to say the least. The alcohol would’ve warmed his friends up, and maybe offered them the validation of feeling comfort after the suffering days they’d come to endure. 

But then the selfish thought of waiting flashed Levi’s mind, and after a shaky attempt, the first bottle was open. 

Glass clicked against the surface of his front teeth as he took great gulps, the burning feeling not affecting him nearly as much as it should. When one was empty, he opened another.

When did he end up on the floor? 

The floor is dirty, he’ll get dirt under the surfaces of his finger nails, and then he’d have to find a water basin to scrub them. But he didn’t have soap. When was the last time he had soap? 

Soap felt nice in the palms of his hands, slippery under the weight of a warm water touch. He wanted to touch it now, let it slide around in the palms of his hands, drag it across his arms, his stomach and back. Scented soaps were the best. His favourite was lavender. 

Erwin smelt like lavender. 

Erwin smelt like peppermints too. Levi was sure he had a secret stash of them hidden away somewhere in that bloody desk of his. The one he spent all his time sat at, scribbling away at paperwork and documents that Levi couldn’t care less about. 

Another bottle was opened, but Levi couldn’t recall even picking it up. When it was emptied again, he threw it at the stack of hay, a satisfying clink echoing amidst the silence as it hit the floor. The chestnut brown horse let out a sound in retaliation, legs backing up as it made attempt to protect itself from whatever had created the unfamiliar sound. 

“Shut up.” Levi heard himself slur out, pointing at the horse with the drag of his arm, “unless you got Erwin scented soap, you can shut the fucking fuck up.” 

He chuckled before the warm and now familiar feeling of glass pressed against his lips once again. Erwin scented soap. He’d meant lavender, but what was the difference really? 

“Erwin scented soap?” A voice rung out, making Levi jump to his feet, legs in their usual stance and fists at the ready. Despite the readiness he’d felt, his knees were already buckling, and the stable was dancing around his being. 

“Who the fuck spoke words?” He slurred, unaware of how little sense he was making. His brain refused to catch up to what spilled out his mouth. “Speak more words again and I’ll fucking fuck you the shit up.” 

He blinked rapidly at the sight appearing in front of him, red hair and lopsided smile making their presence known. Levi felt a hand on his shoulder, and he took it as an invitation for him to slump back down to his previous position on the dirt ridden floor. 

“Oh my god, are you drunk?” The voice laughed, and Levi finally knew who’d spoken. 

“At least I don’t have four eyes.” He attempted weakly, taking another swig of the bottle he’d clenched in the sweaty palms of his hands. “Mutant Titan fucking weirdo.” 

“I don’t fuck Titans, Levi.” 

Levi threw them a look of daggers, “prove it.” 

Hange tutted, a smile still tugging the corners of their lips as their fingers ran over the bridge of their nose. “I didn’t even think you could get drunk.” Amusement was pure in their voice, but even Levi’s drunken state could detect the worry etched within. 

“I didn’t think drunk felt this way.” 

Hange took a moment to make Levi’s words make sense in their mind, before they shrugged and took a position on the floor next to him, crossing legs and leaning with their palms flat on the ground. “What did you think being drunk would feel like?” 

The smaller male hummed in thought, and Hange noticed that his nose crinkled as he did so, features not as composed as he’d always attempted to keep them. 

“You and Erwin used to sing when you got drunk.” He mumbled, fingers tapping the glass sloppily, “I don’t feel like singing.” 

“Why not?”

Levi furrowed his eyebrows downwards, eyes squinting under the weight of his tiredness and the headache threatening to swarm his mind. “What the fuck you mean, why not?” He asked with a scoff, “do you really think this is the time for singing?” 

Hange shrugged, and Levi detested the fact they still bore a smile. How were they always doing that? Smiling? Everyone was dead and Hange was still radiating positivity. 

“How the fuck do you keep doing that?” He blurted out, forgetting that Hange wasn’t some psychic mind reader that knew Levi’s every thought... though sometimes he did consider it a possibility. 

In return their face could only offer a confused expression, one eyebrow raising as the other still settled in place. They looked like they were about to laugh. Levi could only guess in the back of his mind that he was probably a comical sight to the other in his drunken mess. 

“Stop smiling.” He said flatly, “I hate it.” 

By this time it’s no secret that the two have become fluent in the language of the silence that would fall between them. But it wasn’t usually like this.

No. After he died the silences he and Hange bore were his only sense of comfort.  
The way their head would rest on his shoulder while they both struggled to keep their eyes open. The way Hange would sit there, pen in hand and scribbling away as Levi slowly attempted to read the small words that littered the pages of books. The silence they held were suitable, and helped them communicate better than words ever could. 

But now, as Hanges smile was wiped from their face, Levi didn’t like the silence. 

“Why are you even here Levi?” 

Levi turned his head away from the face he didn’t even realise he’d been staring at, eyes dropping to look at the ground.

“Isabel likes horses.” He murmured, voice more composed than it had been previously. “And the horses looked sad. So I pet them.”

Hange nodded knowingly, “I like horses too,” they said in a calm voice, silky and soft and unfamiliar to Levi, “horses don’t hurt people if they’re treated right. But humans, they can be given the world and yet still want to shit all over it.” 

Absentmindedly, Levi could feel himself shuffle in small movements, eventually he knew there was no point in blaming his intoxicated self for the way he leant against his taller friend, resting his head on their shoulder. 

“I saw Moblit talking to the horses once.” He didn’t much know why that was the thought that left the surface of his tongue, but once it slipped out he decided it was only appropriate to continue, “he was speaking to them in that voice mothers use when they see a snotty little fuck.” 

Hange knew he meant child.

“I think he named them you know.” He murmured, “it made me smile on the inside.” 

He hadn’t even realised that Hange had a bottle raised to their lips, taking small swings at a time unlike Levi who gulped his down like a dog in the summers heat. 

“When was the last time you smiled, Levi?” Hange asked, setting the bottle to the side of their stance on the floor, hands settling themselves in the pit of their crossed legs, “your lack of emotion gives me the creeps.”

Levi scowled, alcohol running down his throat once again. His eyes flickered in the darkness to observe the empty bottles flung here and there. It’s late; he hadn’t noticed the height of the moon through the open side of the stable till now.  
“Kenny always said emotions hold you back from what is right, make you spend all your time considering shit that doesn’t need to be considered,” he shrugged, “he was a bastard but he was fucking right, I’ll give him that.” 

Hange opened their mouth to speak, before shutting it again at their own hesitation. Levi knew what they were going to say nevertheless. 

“Yup.” He replied to their silence, popping his p as he did so, “you’re thinking about him too, right? Lying their on that fucking roof?” He hummed, head still nesting on the surprisingly soft shoulder of his friend, “emotions got the better of me then. I ended up speaking to a dead fucking corpse.” 

Hange shivered, and Levi knew he should take this as a signal to stop talking. But why should he do that? Why should he keep that to himself? 

“Have so many fucking nightmares.” Levi muttered as though it was the most casual thing in the world, “his organs spilling out as that dumbass Floch put him on the roof, his pale face, as though he was dead before his heart could stop beating.” 

He took a gulp of his drink.

“And his eyes.” He let out a breathless chuckle, somewhere between comedic relief and exasperation, “they weren’t blue anymore Hange. They weren’t like the ocean that we saw.” 

The brunette placed their palm in Levi’s sweaty one, still staring straight ahead but Levi knew their attention was solely focused on him. He allowed them to link their fingers together in silence, the only detectable noises being the steady breaths of the horse and the shaky breaths of their own.

After a short while of oblivion, Levi removed his heavy head to peer at his friend, noting the silent tears that rolled down their hollow cheeks. 

“Crying won’t get you anywhere four eyes.”

Yet he knew that the blurred sights in front of him weren’t alcohol induced, but the water collecting in his own, tumbling softly down his face.


End file.
